


interval

by enmity



Category: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 06:09:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11396904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enmity/pseuds/enmity
Summary: The conversation stalls. They stay in silence for a few moments, the hum of the TV almost like white noise, and Kazuya is suddenly aware that there’s supposed to be an opportunity here: a chance, slim as it is, to say even a fraction of all the things he always wanted to but for some reason never could.(Six-and-a-half months before the Tokyo Lockdown, Kazuya pays Naoya a visit.)





	interval

It’s in the summer of his fourth year that his parents take a relative into their care. A car stops a distance away, tires screeching to a shrill halt before it reaches the driveway. The restrained shut of the car door; muffled, sure-footed steps; then, soft knocks, followed by the familiar chime of the doorbell.

Mundane, ordinary sounds, and yet years later, as a teenager, Kazuya’s recollections of Naoya’s first arrival into his life are inexplicably inseparable from them. They’re no less a component of nostalgia than the memory of his cousin’s narrow, sullen eyes, the stilted manner in which they exchanged introductory greetings, or how Kazuya looked up and saw himself in Naoya’s stoic face in ways he couldn’t—no, wouldn’t be able to articulate or pinpoint with precision until many years to come.

(Too much of an emotion eventually weighs one’s heart, but it was innocent curiosity, at least in the beginning: this is what Kazuya tells himself, when the urge to pick his mind raw jolts him awake from peaceful daydreams.)

 

 

 

The older boy stands at the doorway, straight-backed and pale, one palm grasping the backpack strap like a lifeline around his shoulder, and Kazuya, curiosity unhelped and past admonishments to the contrary forgotten, stares. He must’ve been lucky, because his mother either doesn’t notice or doesn’t mind, his father distracted by the cardboard box he’s carrying into the living room. Kazuya doesn’t look away when he gets the chance, even though he knows he should.

“Your cousin,” his father introduces. His smile is gentle and his hand is on Naoya’s shoulder. “He’ll be living together with us starting today.”

Naoya stays quiet throughout. He occupies the once-vacant bedroom across from Kazuya’s, cozy and fitted with new sheets, and in the following days his parents supply him with details that go beyond the rudimentary: that his parents passed away (a dreadful accident), that he has no other close relative willing to take him in, that Naoya’s still very sad and tired from the move and what happened to his mom and dad. That must be why he doesn’t smile or laugh often, or very much at all.

“Promise me you’ll get along with him?” Naoya went to sleep early and Kazuya thinks about it as he’s being tucked in. The blanket is big enough for him still. Ah, but, Naoya’s probably too old for that, he decides then. Seven years feels unreachably far when you’re only four. His mother smiles: “Think of him as part of the family. It’s just like having an older brother, isn’t it, Kazuya.”

“Yeah.” It makes enough sense, so he nods, young enough not to draw conclusions of his own.

 

 

 

Days go by that turn into weeks and months, seasons and years, and Kazuya keeps his promise all the while. Their parents are pleased, although he never does graduate from calling Naoya by his first name, a stubborn remnant of the early months of awkwardness, standing on the tentative line between one thing and another, everything else of which Kazuya’s long outgrown in favor of the ribbing and casual familiarity sibling relationships are inevitably defined by. Semantics aside, Naoya’s been family since as long as he can remember.

It’s not something that’s brought up, not really. Their parents ask about peers and grades over dinner every now and then, perhaps out of obligation more than anything. Kazuya’s doing well, exemplary perhaps, but Naoya excels. He makes the top of his class and gets a brand new laptop for a graduation present. Kazuya doesn’t recall when it started, though he’s sure Naoya’s always been interested in technology; and even if he weren’t, he’s just as certain his cousin would’ve been exceptional in it regardless, passion or no. There’s no jealousy or sarcasm in that thought—merely an admission of fact. That’s just how Naoya’s always been: him and his sharp tongue and unparalleled mind and self-satisfied smiles, apparent or otherwise.

 

 

 

Kazuya peers over his cousin’s shoulder. He is ten. The screen flickers, glows dimly; lines and lines of code meet Naoya’s eyes, reflected faint and blinkered in their red. Kazuya’s gaze, though, is set elsewhere.

Naoya spares a sidelong glance. “Something wrong?”

He shifts, looking away. The older boy makes a disparaging face, though he quickly drops it, returning back to the screen. His attention hadn’t been diverted for more than half a second. “It’s nothing,” Kazuya manages lamely, after a beat, and at the same time a strange part of him wonders if there are some things that Naoya won’t be able to see coming, after all.

 

 

 

Naoya continues to substitute the term cousin for brother with him, the word said with a kind of familiarity that would maybe, in any other context, imply closeness in their factual absence. It doesn’t, though, and Kazuya’s never thought of it that way, never thought much about it at all—assuming he can even name what _it_ is supposed to mean—and it’s not until he finds himself standing outside the door to his cousin’s cleared-out room on a Friday afternoon that it dawns on him, at fourteen years old, how he can’t remember a single instance in which Naoya has called him his brother.

It changes nothing of the fact that he cannot remember, and yet the reasoning continues to repeat itself, each time a degree more imploring than the last. Surely, beckons his rational side, that isn’t the case. Surely Kazuya’s just forgotten.  

Downstairs, his mother is washing the dishes; he can hear the water running. His father is at work, and even though Naoya’s always endlessly preoccupied with codes and numbers and himself, an absence is an absence, and there’s something to be said here about taking things for granted, isn’t there?

(Though, he wonders if Naoya would’ve liked to hear him admit that. He could always visit, but selfish as it is, it won’t be the same.)

It’s the final drop in a glass that’s been brimming for too long, an emotion left unchecked and free to take root, yet at the same time it almost feels unbefitting of the phrase. The route he took towards wickedness was not quick, but neither was he unyielding. This, he acknowledges. The corridor is narrow and empty and Kazuya doesn’t feel much changed. The only indication of something amiss is the unmistakable prick in his chest, the dull ache of having acknowledged something within you that you’re not sure you’d rather live with, or without.

 

 

 

His own room is neat, lived-in, familiar but painlessly so. Eraser flakes accumulate in a pile at the corner of his notebook, splayed open in display of unfinished equations. Kazuya reaches for the pencil and draws an angle, a letter denoting a variable, strikes a line between numerator and denominator, harsh strokes and pressure of graphite on paper. His headphones drown out the ambience, and the rhythm of problem-solving is an easy one to get into. Naoya doesn’t stand behind the chair, looking over his shoulder in an approximation of the doting older brother archetype he tepidly lives up to, invariably self-satisfied when the mechanical tip of his own pencil presses onto a spotted oversight. Tsk-tsk, it says, in light inoffensive taps, a simple mistake. You should know better.

And Kazuya, partly in reflex and partly in defection of imaginary advice, looks behind him anyway. He thinks Naoya would’ve snickered, and then reaches across the desk for his eraser.

 

 

 

Time passes. Atsuro and Yuzu are great company and better friends, always have been, and so when Kazuya drops them urgent text messages apologizing for not being able to make it to the movie they’d been planning to watch, he feels just a little bit guilty. Their responses are predictable; Atsuro deflects with a joke and Yuzu threatens him with emoticons. He finds it in himself to chuckle when he scrolls through his messages.

He pockets his phone, already drawing up ultimatums for himself, and gets off the bus at the corner. It’s a clear day, almost too bright, but the walk to the residential area isn’t so far away. Distantly, he tries to remember how long it’d been since his last visit. It’s been a while. He stopped by a convenience store on his way here; his mother always did scold his cousin’s subpar eating habits. Naoya, at least, would get some free snacks for all his hospitality.

Naoya opens up at the third knock. “It’s you,” he says, sounding unimpressed, but steps aside to let Kazuya in nevertheless. It’s been more than a while, though he doesn’t make a point to say it. Instead he takes in the view: Naoya’s living space is spartan, fastidiously maintained—what else could be expected?—and he hasn’t done much interior revamping in the fair amount of time it’s been since Kazuya last visited. Not that there’s much space for that in the first place.

“Sounds like a waste of time, either way,” Naoya had said then.

Kazuya shrugs, impassive, and sets down the plastic bag on a nearby desk. His couch is as cramped and solitary as the rest of the apartment. The shelves are fuller, stacked with too-thick books and closed boxes of things that don’t seem particularly interesting.

When he moved away Naoya had packed his things into boxes just like those, cardboard and repurposed and precisely labeled. He did not bring much. Neither did he leave much behind. Kazuya helped with the packing and the lifting; the process had been oddly automatic, thoughtless and unremembered, a fact that strikes him only now. He remembers, though, watching the car drive away. Naoya’s steady, purposeful footsteps, his bag lugged over his shoulder. Kazuya’s waving reflection in the rearview mirror. The distance between them had always been great; roads and concrete were no worse barriers than seven years’ time, or prodigious amounts of skill, or uncanny abilities to read people as easily as flipping the pages of a book, just more tangible. That’s what Kazuya had thought to himself at the time. A brief thought, and equally complacent, exactly like his farewell gesture.

“You don’t mind if I turn on the fan?”

“Go ahead.”

The disparity between his cousin’s taste in interior design and clothes has, much to Kazuya’s amusement, only grown larger in the five years that’s passed since he graduated from his high school’s drolly sensible shirt and slacks. He’s theorized; for all the impressive claims Naoya has to himself, donning that ridiculously apt robe may have been an attempt to assert independence in a way that shiny degrees and accolades couldn’t. A silly hypothesis if there is one, but he holds onto it nevertheless. He’s never pegged Naoya as a hobbyist tailor, though it wouldn’t shock him if he were wrong.

“What’s all this?”

“Hm?” Kazuya cranes his head. “Ah, Yuzu and Atsuro were supposed to join me for a—study session. Yeah. There’s an exam coming up next week and we were planning on covering all the materials today…”

“…so I’m assuming they ditched you?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way. The two of them just couldn’t make it,” he says, sounding as good-natured as Naoya expects him to be. Lying to Naoya is possibly near the top in a list of stupid decisions to make, especially over something as trivial as an excuse, and yet Kazuya prattles on anyway, fully aware of the irrationality of what he’s doing. “It happens. And besides, shouldn’t you thank me? I didn’t want all this food to go uneaten. I was planning on visiting you at some point anyway, so.”

That last part, at least, isn’t a lie. He laughs in an imitation of nonchalance.

“See? Your fridge’s paltry. Mother always scolded you for that.”

“This is all junk food,” Naoya points out. “What point are you trying to make?”

“Nothing.” He smiles. “Other than that you need to do some grocery shopping. Sorry I can’t be of much help, though.” It will be months before summer even starts proper.

“Advice duly noted. You’ve always been persistent.” Naoya sighs, arms crossed, but doesn’t protest further when Kazuya joins him on the tiny couch, already tearing open a packet of vinegar chips.

The small boxy TV stationed above the shelf is playing a news report. Hardly the appropriate entertainment to accompany an accidental moment of sibling bonding, but neither of them makes a move to change the channel. The anchorwoman talks about the weather and petty thievery and a grisly murder allegedly committed by a vampire, only a few blocks away from where Kazuya lives.

The world’s really gone to shit these days, although he knows there’s not much value in voicing out such a statement. It’s not as if he’s a particularly pessimistic person, anyway. A lot of things have happened since Naoya moved away. Kazuya would’ve given it some thought, if not for the present company. As it stands the rest of the city seems to have been pushed to the wayside of his mind. There’s only this space, them, the decidedly unassuming silence settling between them against the reporter’s detached composure, his voice intermittently blotted by static.

Naoya’s face remains impassive all the while. Maybe it’s apathy, or something else. Kazuya’s mostly given up on trying to read his expressions, although it doesn’t stop him from paying attention. The fact that he’s not as discreet as he thinks he is only rears its ugly head occasionally, but even then, he likes to give himself the benefit of the doubt.

A distant part of his mind recalls the quiet of his room and the tap of a mechanical pencil, a subtle, sudden alert. He’s hunched over the desk, annotating a passage in his world history textbook, and there’s no error, no misstep in calculation, but Naoya’s mechanical pencil rolls off the edge and falls to the floor anyway. The lead tip is snapped clean off. He picks it up, looks at his empty hand.

His mistakes are painfully predictable, trajectory and momentum and all, but he won't learn about that in class until the next term. He allows himself a pass.

“So,” Kazuya starts. “How’s work been?”

“Since when have you been interested?”

Immediately pushing aside mushier, more compromisingly honest explanations, he says, “Come on. I brought food! I was just trying to be nice.”

“I don’t think I’ll be around for a while,” Naoya says, in lieu of an actual answer. He looks contemplative, though it could easily just be Kazuya’s imagination. He could chalk a lot of things up to that, come to think of it. “I’ll be busy for the next few months. Probably won't be able to reach me by phone, either.”

“You don’t call home often enough as is. I bet I’m lucky to even catch you at your place at all.” Kazuya says it only to put at bay the knowledge of what this means. “So you’re leaving, huh. Sounds like a big project you’ve got on your hands.” He stretches out both arms behind him, leaning back.

There’s a sense of finality to the words when Naoya replies evenly, “You can say that.”

The conversation stalls. They stay in silence for a few moments, the hum of the TV almost like white noise, and Kazuya is suddenly aware that there’s supposed to be an opportunity here: a chance, slim as it is, to say even a fraction of all the things he always wanted to but for some reason never could.

What is there to say? The question nags at him. A hundred things come to mind, but none of them feel like an adequate answer. The problem isn’t what to say. It’s what’s worth saying. He’s sure he had an inkling of an idea, back when he sent the texts to Atsuro and Yuzu. He isn’t sure when his mind decided to crumple and throw that out.

More importantly—Naoya’s leaving. He’s going to leave again, like adults are expected to, and this time it won’t be somewhere so conveniently close to where Kazuya is. Maybe there won’t be a next visit; at least, not for a while. The old him from years ago would’ve shrugged at it, he’s fairly certain, content with the assumption that they’ll see each other again and bicker halfheartedly like they always do. But somehow, in this moment, he’s not sure if he can make himself do that. That old familiar prick returns in his chest again.

But in the end, the safety of hesitation wins out. Kazuya gets up from the couch, the snack forgotten, brushing off nonexistent dust from his shirt. His gaze is fixed on the floor. “Well,” he says. “I’ll be going now; wouldn’t want to be a bother and all that. It was nice seeing you again,” he adds, because he can’t help it, and barely curbs the urge to double back on his words and ask if he can stay a bit longer, it’s been more than a while and it’s not as if it’s getting late.

He doesn’t. He takes a step.

 

 

 

Naoya closes the door as Kazuya walks away. Kazuya spares a glance behind him: an empty, narrow space, lined with uniform doors. Not much time has passed since when he arrived, and nothing has happened during the interim. He shoves his hands in his pockets and tries not to feel like he’s missing something important. Like he didn’t just pass up the one chance he might have of seeing Naoya without that dumb expression for a change.

There’ll be a next time, Kazuya convinces himself on the slow trek home. In the meanwhile, he’ll have to make do with wondering; wondering what face Naoya will make when Kazuya tells him exactly why he never called Naoya his brother, all this time.

**Author's Note:**

> 22/07/2017: added ~700 words
> 
> 29/09/17: some of this was based on the manga, which, at the time i wrote this, i'd only read like a couple dozen pages of. and then i set it aside, saw more gameplay, picked up physical copies of half of the manga, and ended up with this. sorry... thank you for reading, anyway!


End file.
